After congratulating his own administration for employment and income growth (even though the increases fall well short of previous economic expansions), President Bush in his State of the Union address proclaimed his commitment to balance the federal budget. “Together we can… balance the federal budget.” That is known as chutzpah. Considering that the budget was running unprecedented surpluses before Mr. Bush slashed taxes in 2001 and 2003, while he ratcheted up military spending on overseas adventures, it is easy to believe that we could balance the budget. The reason we have a budget deficit that is almost 2% of GDP (more than 3% if we exclude the Social Security surplus) is that Mr. Bush’s policies created the imbalance.

Now that he has created the budget deficit, Mr. Bush proposes to end it by “restrain[ing] the spending appetite of the federal government.” He is referring here not to the three-billion dollar a week appetite of the war in Iraq, of course. The appetite Mr. Bush wants to suppress is for education, health care, old age pensions, highways, and scientific research.

Mr. Bush singles out Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for particular attacks. He does not argue directly that Social Security is too generous, or that the Medicare drug plan is much more expensive than it should be. Never getting to the level of detail that might draw attention to the threat of poverty that hovers just above the nation’s old people, Mr. Bush proposes that we marshal “good sense and good will” to “fix Medicare and Medicaid and save Social Security.”

The nation does indeed need some fundamental repairs to its economic policies. These do not include holding revenues unchanged while bludgeoning the ogre of entitlements. They do not include handouts to insurance companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers coupled with privatization of the responsibility of paying the bills.

Policies in a democracy eventually must find approval by people in the middle of society. These are not the folks who run companies and enjoy $100,000 a year tax breaks. These are the families of four living on $50,000 a year and the retirees living on $20,000 a year. It is the height of chutzpah to solicit these average households to support policies that fly in the face of their own interests.

Bernard Wasow is a Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation.